Anubis-Sibuna

Flying V
2007

Perhaps I should known what was coming when I saw the image on the back on the insert that showed a man wearing ancient garb inside an Egyptian tomb looking at this band's Myspace page on his computer. However, I did not judge this CD by it's back cover and soldiered on. My interest in this project was really just because half of this band (guitarists Simon Lees and Andy Hart) had played in Budgie at different points. They say this project combines numerous different styles of music and indeed does. It has elements of metal, jazz rock and more modern rock traits as well. Unfortunately they seem to have decided to pick some of the worst traits of each style. There are number of instrumentals and although most of them have some decent guitar parts they all become horribly repetitious before even reaching their halfway point in the running time. The songs with vocals tend to lean more towards modern rock although without much energy or enthusiasm. The vocals are done by Sarah Co'burn who is the daughter of bass player Pete Williamson. Her vocals are in tune, but they just kind of float out there with no real thrust or direction. I know this was a project that everyone involved said they were very excited about. However it sounds like they got together over a weekend, threw some random parts together and switched the record button on while they noodled around, called it an album and packaged it up for sale. It just really reeks of being very underdone and no amount of ancient Egyptian references can save this bland effort from feeling like a side project that wasn't worth doing.

http://www.myspace.com/theanubisprojectuk